


Order's Consequences

by SlySama



Series: Unfinished Works. [13]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 00:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlySama/pseuds/SlySama





	Order's Consequences

Help. 

Help me. 

Someone. 

Anyone. 

Please. 

I beg of you. 

Help me. !!! !!! !

 

The room was small, as it always had been, hardly any personal effects, a small wired bed in the corner, a dingy mattress atop, threadbare sheets and old falling apart pillow, a small desk in the other corner with a one or two more use chair, the wardrobe with the broken door and no clothes inside, Hedwig's birdcage now half mangled in a different corner; thankfully without Hedwig herself inside.   
Now, to accompany these small things, the worn ugly carpet that adorned the floor was splattered with red stains, the sheets Harry'd slept in multiple times since he was a child, the wall closest to the bed and there was a red hand print on both the wardrobe door and the door to the bedroom that forever was locked by the relatives that had done this; constantly, since he'd turned 4. 

Harry was in this small bedroom too, right now, covered in bruises, scars, abraisions, broken ribs, broken bones, his body limp and unmoving in a pool of blood beneath him, it was the worst they had ever done and it quite possibly was the last they would ever do.  
Because right now, though Harry was lying on the floor, broken like this, Harry was also hovering in the air looking down at this. This horrific scene. 

He understood. 

The shackles that had been placed around his arms now jinkled as he floated around the room, and the sensation of his head going through the door wasn't altogether pleasant either--he was still covered in the blood and was unsure if he would ever not be; the clothes he had been wearing were in tatters, rags hanging onto his body; it really was horrific, it unnerved him to see himself in the wardrobe mirror even more when he could actually touch his own, cold, unmoving body, not a single finger fazing through. 

If only someone had come when he'd screamed, pleaded, begged for help; if only someone could have stopped this. The Wizarding World wouldn't be doomed, they'd still have their ''Chosen One'' alive and...mistreated but alive and Harry'd eventually rid them of the Evil of ''Lord Voldemort'' once and for all like he was apparently destined to, according to some prophecy made by Trelawny before his birth, a prophecy had Voldemort not interperated this way, could have been passed to someone else, someone else could have been given the duty at the age of 11, or maybe it wouldn't have come to pass at all. 

Maybe it still wouldn't? Maybe they didn't need him to defeat Voldemort? Maybe that's why no one, not a single order member--ones that claimed to be ordered to watch over him-- came to save him? 

Maybe that's why he was a ghost? 

Thinking it wouldn't hurt, Harry tried his hand at fazing through the locked door again. Once on the otherside, he took a deep breath before moving any further away; he was loath to leave his body here, with these brutal human beings but what else could he do? He needed to find someone if they weren't going to come to him. Floating slowly down the stairs, Harry watched as his relatives moved frantically around the house, they looked about to ready to break down and flee real soon.   
Petunia was packing things up as it was while a tissue was shoved to her face.   
Dudley was frantically scrubbing his hands as he sat on the couch watching the old tv and Vernon was raging around the house, stomping his feet, causing his blubber to bounce dramatically, his face was turning a deep shade of purple and he looked about ready to yell and scream for them to pack their shit and pile into the car. 

Well, who doesn't flee after they murder somebody? They hadn't yet of course...but they were dearly close to it, Harry could see that. He floated around some more, trying not to notice himself gliding and hovering above the actual floor. He was scared, if he was honest with himself. Scared, worried and concerned and seriously hurt that nobody had showed up when he was in trouble. Really where were these order members that were on Harry watch constantly now since his last attempt to run away? 

Where were they? 

Did they not monitor him? Did no body have a single clue as to what Harry was being put through everytime Dumbledore sent him here? His friends, he knew, knew he was being starved a lot of the time and he was thankful for Mrs Weasley's basket of goodies she gave at the train station everytime but...weren't they a little suspicious of all the bruises and Harry's quietness everytime he came back? 

Harry sniffled and rubbed a torn sleeve across his face; thankfully that part didn't possess as much blood as the rest.   
If his body was cleaned up, would he become cleaner? Would these shackles come off?   
Fazing through the door, Harry guessed he may as well try to hail the Knight Bus and get a lift to at least the Leaky Cauldron, who knew what he'd do if he couldn't hail it. Float all the way to Hogwarts? 

~~  
~~

Before he even knew it, even though he had successfully hailed the Knight Bus, his body was dispersing and as frightening as it was, he ended up in the middle of the Great Hall in front of Severus Snape, completely whole, more or less, still transparent and cried with joy that at least he wasn't completely gone from this earth yet. 

The teachers that were present and having lunch together stared unblinkingly, eyes wide and mouths agape; no one moving and some even dropping their forks and knifes in the shock. 

"Mister Potter?" Snape stood, shakily, hands almost white as he gripped the table. 

What was he supposed to say, wasn't it obvious? He nodded slowly, trying to avoid looking them in the eyes. How was he supposed to explain this? Tell the truth? Would they even believe that? 

"What on earth are you doing?" He stepped around, again shakily and passed a hand through Harry's stomach as if trying to comfirm. Shivering Harry floated back what to a human would be a step; the feeling wasn't pleasant and he completely understood Mrytle's wrath now when Ron had rudely said in their second year ''But it can't hurt, it'd just go right through you.'' 

Hurt or not, it hurt mentally that someone couldn't touch them anymore; he swallowed thickly and took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears as Snape opened his mouth, frowning deeply. 

"What on earth--Mister Potter why are you a GHOST?!" He screamed the last and quickly everyone went into motion, Dumbledore began to make an illegal portkey, McGonagall started pacing frantically and muttering to herself with a hankerchief to her eyes and Snape was abount 3 seconds from what looked like collapse. 

Harry sunk down onto the floor, hovering above it with crossed legs and hid his face in his hands. This was horrible, why did he come here? How did he even get here? The feeling came again just as ubruptly and he found himself back in his bedroom, hovering above his mangled, cold as ice, pure white, blue lipped, tattered clothed and bloodied body, the shackles still imbedded into the carpet and wood beneath. At least the Dursley's were to frightened to touch him; in fact, he wasn't even sure they were still in the house and with the loud crack in the backyard and subsequent silence afterwards, the idea seemed even more likely that they had fled. 

"MISTER POTTER?!" 

Footfalls pounded up the staircase, down the hall before backtracking and stopping in front of the bedroom door with numerous locks. "What are--" Harry popped his head through the door, tears streaking down his cheeks without care anymore and pointed down to the locks. "Unspell them, I don't think the Dursley's are here anymore to give you the key in fright. I'm inside...and..." He fell back in and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before putting his head back through. "...It isn't a pretty side so be warned." The locks clicked open and the door creaked open with Harry's head still halfway through. 

The gasps that he heard were quite loud as they crowded into the bedroom; Harry was just glad his friends weren't here to witness this. If anything it seemed to be more than enough for his teachers, more than a couple seeming to collapse near the doorway and breakdown; Snape didn't seemed to be his overly stoic and stern self either, his hand was shaky around his ebony wand, his other shook as it covered his mouth and his eyes closed--he looked close to throwing up what he'd been eating when Harry had materialised in front of them. 

"This is--" He knelt down and his hand continued to shake as he barely pressed the pad of a finger to Harry's pale, bruised and bloodied cheek. It really was a very horrific sight, it really had been the worst he'd recieved at the Dursley's--of course, because he was now dead...

"Potter--" Snape didn't seem to know what to say, incredibly shaken by the news, the sight. He began to slowly spell Harry clean, unlock the shackles and spell them into ash, weird or not, pressed back Harry's now clean but still messy hair, placing stray strands behind pale ears. It almost seemed as if Snape had really cared for him; he coughed, destroying the moment in an instant. 

"Professor..?" 

The man coughed. "Yes?" 

"Are you alright?" Harry felt very awkward asking this as his other Professors floated his body out and porkeyed it back to Hogwarts. The chains hadn't come off either, he'd been hoping--but they remained, jingling as he moved, it was the only thing that remained on his ghostly body, his bruises, wounds, abraisons, everything else gone and his body entirely like it used to be. He pulled on them as he waited for Snape to reply, wincing as he felt them chaff every now and then and cut into his wrists. 

Why had they chained him?   
After the first harsh hit, Harry hadn't been very disobedient, after the twentieth, Harry had stopped being vocal and moving at all. 

"No, Potter. I am not...and when the Wizarding World finds out we allowed this--they won't be either." He stood then, fists clenched at his sides and walked out of the room with a final swish of his wand; the mess disappeared, as if it had never occured in the first place and Harry quickly followed after him.   
When they appeared at Hogwarts, Harry was already inside when Snape entered, in fact he asked Harry to follow him up to the Infirmary to confirm some untold suspicions. 

~~  
~~

"This is horrible, it's so horrible." 

Harry licked his lips and swallowed hard as they entered into the ward; Snape unconsciously holding the door open for him. 

"It's unthinkable. Headmaster how could you?! How could you have sent this boy back every year, knowing full well the way he was treated?!" He almost went straight through Professor Snape as the man stopped dead in his tracks, his back ridged and hands clenched into fists at his sides, fingers of one hand still tightly wrapped around his ebony wand, white knuckled now. 

"You knew?" 

The long white beared and half-moon spectacled old acentric man turned with a swish of his overly bright purple star patterned robe to look directly at the stern man he had employed at the tender age of 20. 

"Severus." 

"You knew Albus?" He stressed, hands straining now to not strangle the man with a hex. 

Harry stayed well out of the way, not that it would do anything even if he had been standing in the middle of either one of them; after all...he was dead already, a mere strangulation hex wouldn't, couldn't hurt him anymore. He merely did it out of unconsciousness, his human instinct clearly labelling the elder mans behaviour as a danger zone and easily pushed over the edge. 

Dumbledore merely looked down at Harry's smartly dressed form on the bed; Harry hadn't a clue where the clothes came from because as far as he knew he'd not possessed such clothed before and all of the clothes he had once possessed the Dursley's had burned and destroyed, or had tried to with his cloak--this thankfully, was not so destructable and was now buried instead in the Dursley back garden behind the leaning tin shed. 

He wondered idly where Hedwig was now and if she was safe as Snape stepped forward and grabbed the Headmaster by the front of his robe, yelling clear into his old and worn face. 'You knew he was being mistreated there and you sent him anyway you daft old fool?!"   
Dumbledore's wethered hands, one black from an apparant miss calculation of a Horcrux, curled around Snape's and his lips cracked into a sad smile. 

"I apologise, I merely thought it was for the best; the entire home was swathed in blood wards Severus, it was the best to keep Harry safe." 

"Safe?" He sneered. "Home?" He growled. "You bloody fool, the brat is dead, a ghost." He gestculated to Harry behind him in thought. "All because you couldn't see that he was not the least bit safe in that rotten house, with those rotten human beings? Blood wards or no blood wards, Potter would have been safer with a Death Eater, at least they wouldn't have killed him." He trailed off with a large sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he let go of the fabric. 

"He would have been safer with me Albus, or even the Weasley's. Lily never wanted her son to go to her sister, I know she would have never wanted that. Petunia was always a jealous wretch, but when Lily recieved her Hogwarts letter and she didn't--the animosity between them only grew, she specified in her will, that should she die, Harry would go to at least his God Father, never, never, to her sister and her family of magic hating bafoons." 

"Calm yourself, it isn't like we can change anything now Severus. Madam Pomfrey will do all she can, if at all possible and when we fix this, when Mister Potter is alive and well again, by all means, take charge of him Severus." 

Harry blinked and pushed the phantom glasses back up his nose. "Hello, I am here...what makes you think I would want to be taken ''charge of'' by Professor Snape? And...um, as far as I know, you can't bring back the dead anyhow Professor." The old man smiled sadly at him and dropped his head a moment. 

"We'll see. We'll see, as for now, Madam Pomfrey seems to think there is something and I am willing to believe her; for all our sakes. You're body will be put on a drip of various potions and medicines and until such time this all works out and you go back into your proper body; Perhaps stay out of sight? I will tell students when they arrive at the Welcoming Feast, that you have taken a leave to train." 

Unsure if this was altogether...well he wasn't sure what to say so he just nodded slowly, frowned a little and hovered over to a spare chair near his bed and hovered above this crossed legged in even deeper thought as they turned back to talk privately with Madam Pomfrey.   
How was he going to remain hidden?   
What would he do if he got bored or lonely? He didn't want to be rangled into talking with some of the resident ghosts and especially not Moaning Mrytle. He shivered just thinking about it; if she found out he was a ghost now, there was no telling what she would attempt; after all, she had had a crush on him since his second year. 

 

"Potter." 

Head pressed into his hands and elbows digging into his knees, chains dangling and jangling across his pants, Harry didn't even hear a single thing, so caught up in thinking, he'd just completely blocked everything else out. 

"Mister Potter?" A hand quickly passed across his head and looked up to scowl as he shivered. 

"It isn't pleasant you know, please don't do that." He rubbed his head and tried not to feel his own lack of feeling as he did so. Snape rolled his eyes, seemingly coming more back into his usual stern self. Becoming accustomed to the situation? 

"If you are done spacing out, you are to stay with me for the duration of your..." He paused and wavered. "sabatical. If at all possible, please do avoid being a nuiance in my home and if you can block people out like this, why have you never done so for occulmency?" He crossed his arms and frowned down. 

Harry shrugged. "Because I'm merely thinking? And you didn't exactly explain to me the mechanics of occlumency, Sir. You merely shoved your wand into my face, screamed at me to occlude and then delved into my memories, which by the way, you obviously didn't notice very much, because alot of those memories were of the Dursley's and their mistreat of me; of course, I hadn't shown them intentionally and I wasn't about to go into more detail if you had acknowledged them." He ''stood'' back up and crossed his own arms. "Why do I have to stay with you? Can't I find somewhere else? My own room or something?" He turned to Dumbledore. 

"Afraid not, this would be easier Harry." 

He sighed and rolled his eyes, why should he even listen to any of these people? They didn't really do anything for him...and Madam Pomfrey was the one trying to bring him back to life--as much he thought it impossible. She was bustling about the imfirmary as they spoke, collecting various things, unlocking bookcases and grabbing out antique looking notebooks and documents, placing moutains of vials on the sidetable and inserting various ones into a tube connecting to his blood stream via a medium sized siringe. 

He swallowed just looking at it and scrubbed at the spot on his own transparent arm. "Fine. I'll stay with Snape." "Professor Snape." He corrected mockingly as they gave him a look of disapproval. Ghost or no Ghost, Snape was still his teacher he supposed. 

"Come Potter." 

Harry's lips twitched when the mans hand twitched and partially reached out to grab him around the wrist to drag him down to the dungeons; an unconscious gesture for sure and the man quickly rushed to the Infirmary doors, hand on the doorhandle he waited only a brief moment before leaving entirely. Harry smiled sadly, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 

~~  
~~

"Potter!" Snape yelled, grabbing his chest and closing his eyes briefly. 

Harry almost chuckled at the reaction of him already being there, in front of the mans private quarters, lazily ''leaning'' against the stone wall, arms and ankles crossed in boredom. "What took you so long Professor?" 

"Don't. The jokes aren't as funny right now as they might be if you were older. Get inside." 

Huffing, Harry did so; fazing through the wall backwards and straight over to the leather couch in the middle, surrounded by a tonne of overflowing bookcases. He had thought it was rather entertaining, but the Professor did, to some extend, have a point. Harry was just trying to lighten the mood and keep himself from freaking out over the events. 

The portrait swung open secondly with a muttered, ''Children these days', followed by a ''Mm'' and Snape stepping inside. He looked tired, stressed and more than a little shaken, two of the three nothing different from usual; it was the third that still shook Harry to the core and the behaviour he had displayed in the Infirmary earlier. 

"What?" 

"Nothing." Harry shook his head, following the mans movements as he went straight to a darkened oak cabinet set into the wall, a padlock sealed the case shut only momontarily as he spelled it open, took out a glistening crystal bottle and poured a decanter of something; He hadn't known Snape drank, but then with the amount of stress he was put through as the Potions Master and the teacher to a number of irresponsible, stupid, and down right moronic students, including the children of death eaters and former and ''present'' collegues, it probably wasn't any wonder. 

Not to mention with the events of the day...yeah Harry didn't blame the man for downing two large glasses of something amber in color; frankly he wanted one himself, but he highly doubted he could; ghostly, afterall. 

"What now?" 

Snape had turned around and was staring at Harry intently as he hovered above the seat. Apparently he'd inadvertently let out a moaning sigh of depression, this inadvertently causing the man to turn around and stare, still holding his glass of liquor. 

"Nothing..." 

"No, it's something. What is it Potter?" 

He sighed. "I was just thinking, understanding why you'd want a drink, and if I'd be able to even pick up a glass, let alone anything else." A contemplative look crossed the older mans face. 

"Only one way to find out." Placing his glass down, he held out a small mug sitting on the coffee table; he hadn't noticed one there as he'd entered, strange, the mug, not the coffee table, that had obviously been there. "Here." He held it out and Harry held out both of his hands, ready when the man was. 

"Ready?" 

"Ready." Harry nodded determinately and closed his eyes to consentrate. He felt a brief pressure before the mug fell through his hands onto the leather sofa beneath his crossed legs. 

"Well, I'm sure it's a matter of concentration, you might just be able to touch things again Potter; if you concentrate enough, train your body. You had almost had that mug sitting in the palm of yours hands for 5 seconds." Harry nodded again, a small smile gracing his lips; he'd do this, he'd train himself to be able to touch things again, then who knows, maybe it'd trigger something and the work Madam Pomfrey is doing will come true, maybe he'd live again, and if not, he'd always be able to touch things again and act normally with his friends; relatively normally. 

"I'll tell you what. You hold this mug in your palm for....20 seconds and I'll give you a drink, what do you say?" 

Harry wasn't even sure he could drink or eat anything but he nodded regardless; no harm in trying after all and whatever Snape was drinking, it seemed quite good and had a lovely smell on the mans breath as he came an inch closer; knees pressing into the leather sofa in front of Harry. 

"You can do it." Snape's head nodded. 

He could. Harry nodded back determinately. 

"Concentrate." 

Harry nodded again, closed his eyes and waited for the man to set the mug back into his hands. It stayed there, for a good number of seconds, perhaps even a minute before it fell back through and onto the sofa beneath him. 

"Well done." Snape headed over to the cabinet once more and removed the bottle of liquor, came back over, placed the mug back into Harry's hands and poured. "There you are. See if that's possible." Tipping his head back, fingers clutched around the black mug, he hissed as the liquid burned a path all the way down. 

Severus chuckled at the look on the boys face, shivering only slightly at the amber color he could see making a path down the boys body. "Perhaps...not partake in food and drink when in the presence of others; it is not altogether pleasant to witness." Sighing Harry nodded and placed the mug back down onto the coffee table; this would take incredible amounts of willpower to get used to this. 

~~  
~~

It was a month or so afterwards, another month to go when another student showed up. Harry was just floating around like he usually did, finding new ways to sneak up on his Professors and new secret hallways and alcoves, fiddling with his chaffing chains and jotting the places down on the Marauders Map-- they'd thankfully found the things the Dursley's had buried some weeks back and now Harry had his cloak, his broom, his wand and his map; not that he could use any of them really or needed too--when he came across them. 

Platinum hair, pale complexion, unusual panicked and shocked expression; it was Draco Malfoy. 

"Draco..." Harry murmured. 

"P--P--Harry what in the--" He shook his white head, obviously lost for words; and who wouldn't be in a situation like this. Harry started to float backwards off the stair subtly, he wasn't sure how to respond to another student and one he'd only just became friends since the middle the previous year and...and depended on him staying alive and defeating Voldemort once and for all. 

"Don't you even dare!" Draco started to run down toward him, hand out stretched.   
Closing his eyes and licking his lips, Harry inhaled deeply and stopped. "Draco.." 

"How, why, I don't understand, tell me Harry." "This isn't just some horrible prank is it?!" 

Harry shook his messy head, "It isn't, unfortunately; I didn't even know you were here, if I had, I would have stayed in Snape's quarters like I was told too."   
Draco frowned. "What?" 

"Until such time as Madam Pomfrey finds a way to...to bring me back...Dumbledore has asked I stay out of sight when school resumes. Speaking of which, why are you here so early, there's another month to go?" He floated to the banister and sat atop it. 

"...Family issues. Please tell why you're like this Harry; so many people are depending on you; I'm depending on you because I knew you could do it; how can you do that...if you're a ghost? Scare him to perminent death?" Harry actually chuckled, "Maybe." Draco shook his head, "You're unbelievable and you keep avoiding my first questions, I'm not daft Potter, I've noticed." 

"Sorry. I don't think you should know to be honest, I'm not sure you'd be able to handle knowing how." 

"Potter." He narrowed his eyes. "Don't miscalculate me I'm a month older than you." 

Harry tried not to laugh in bemusement of the statement and floated down and out of the entrance hall, marauders map in his back pocket, knowing Draco would rush after him. He wasn't thrilled about telling him, but he would if that's what Draco really wanted; it still amazed him how close they had become in the last year and how their secret had remained as such for so long. 

He was skipping flat rocks across the black lake when Draco finally made it to the waters edge; he was breathing heavily and even bent in half, hands pressed to his knees to breath easier and get his breath back. 

"Haaah...Haaah...How..." He swallowed and licked his lips, a frown marring his features. "...How are you doing that?" He pointed; Harry stopped mid-throw and let it pass through his hand back onto the others in the wet dirt before turning to face him. 

"Not easily...Draco..." He held a pleading look in his eyes, pleading him not to want this, these horrible answers. 

"Tell me." 

"Draco.." 

"Harry, tell me." He nodded his blonde head with determination, the same flitting through his grey eyes as he placed himself at the tree, finely dressed back pressed up against the peeling bark; he waited patiently as Harry turned back around and made a sigh of resignation, head lowered to the earth and the ends of his chains. 

"Don't tell me I didn't warn you Malfoy." He shook his head. "It's horrible and I honestly don't think you'd be able to handle knowing it, but if it's really what you want?" He angled his head back to see the reply; the reply was a sigh of sadness and a nod of re-newed determination. 

"Please." 

Harry let out a snick, a Malfoy saying please? He just wished Draco had said please for something else, something less horrify, less menacing, less scarring. "Very well..." His voice was back to its ghostly depression as he took in a large breath and barely above a whisper, began to tell him. All the gory details, even if he did try to keep all of those out the best he could. 

~~  
~~

"Draco." Harry mumbled, floating inches away, practically kneeling beside the other teen clinging to himself, his arms were wrapped around his bent up knees (having slid down the tree some time ago), his blonde head shoved between them and nails dug into his once immaculate trousers, the sniffles had started almost immediately and Harry had done his best to ignore them, his back to the blonde as he continued on, but the moment he'd heard the rustle and the hiccups, he'd immediately stopped and rushed over, hand itching to press atop the blonde's head in comfort. 

"Draco please..." 

"Hicc..." 

Harry sighed and closed his eyes, the tears having fallen and dried on his cheeks ten times over as he'd talked, "Please don't..." he felt so close to breaking down, so close, but he'd kept himself busy, busy with finding new ways to scare his Professor's, finding new places to mark on the marauders map, trying everything in his power to not think about himself, or the situation he was in.   
But each time he told someone else, each time someone asked for the details again, the more he felt himself slipping into the all to real Ghostly depression. If he had to be, he didn't want to be one of those. He wanted to be happy, at least...as happy as he could be. 

"Please Draco..." He felt himself tear up and he blew out a shaky breath. 

"Sniff..." 

The minutes ticked by with Harry by Draco's side at the Black Lake, each with tears rolling down their cheeks for similar yet very different reasons; Draco's head hadn't lifted from his knees yet and Harry wasn't 100% sure it would until Harry was no longer beside him; the blonde never had really liked Harry seeing him in such a state (something about remaining aristocratic, that he was a Malfoy and Malfoy's didn't cry, hogwash obviously), but Harry supposed he got the point; he didn't really like people seeing him crying either. 

"I...I'm going to go back inside the castle okay?...Are...are you okay?" He ''stood'' to his feet and wiped his own glistening tears with his sleeves, barely seeing the shift of the head between his knees as he did so. "We...we'll talk later?" Again there was barely a shift of the white strands against his trousers but getting a small answer by way of this eased Harry's state of mind, only slightly mind you, and allowed him to head back inside. 

~~  
~~

Harry sighed and shifted behind the large suit of armour that had recently been placed inside the Great Hall; wether this was for decoration purposes or for him to spy through, Harry wasn't sure but he damned well was going to use it if he wasn't allowed to be seen. Currently the Headmaster was announcing that he, Harry, had gone to some remote island to train and wouldn't be back for quite some time, until which time all his studies would be carried out by owl post and floo; (this was probably said due to the look Hermione was giving the Headmaster), Harry almost chuckled at it. 

It was a very different perspective from here, to look out over the House Tables and see all his friends and teachers, none the wiser that their ''Chosen One'' was dead and currently a ghost within Hogwarts Castle. Different and very depressing if he thought to much about it. His eyes travelled over to the Slytherin Table and their ''Ice Prince'', who hadn't spoken to Harry since Harry'd told him all the gory details a month ago; it bothered him, but he supposed it was for space, time to think and get over the shock that your friend and hopeful saviour was dead. 

Every now and then through the feast Harry's chains would jingle and someone close by would look over and frown, or mutter to their neighbour that they "could have sworn I heard something over by the suit of armour", or, "since when was a suit of armour in the great hall?", said neighbour would shrug and tune back into numerous teachers announcing things or the first years being sorted. Harry tried his best to keep them quiet but it was hard to do when you didn't have very much room between the wall and the suit of armour and you didn't want to accidently faze through said suit of armour. 

He sighed again and closed his eyes as loud clapping echoed again and Dumbledore announced the sorting was over and the feast to begin; by which time the Ghost would generally come forth and mingle, well by mingle he meant to scare all the first years that hadn't seen a ghost before. The pull to join was immence and Harry could only assume that meant the Castle had claimed him hers. 'I can't...' He thought, shaking his messy head, eyes locked to the crowd. 

He could have sworn she had nudged him forward with her magic (somehow the Castle was a ''She'') as he slipped through a metal arm of the armour; he was beginning to the think the Castle was sentient like the Sorting Hat when he felt another unmistakable nudge to his back and another part of his body slid through the armour.   
He was halfway through it when he suddenly slipped inside of it; somehow without any one the wiser and the armour started to clink and clatter on its own into the middle of the hall. 'Holy crap! Holy shit! No!' His thoughts were frantic as the armour kept moving, he'd thought this armour was still? It hadn't been? Or was he unconsciously doing this? It stopped just short of the Head Table and spun around; head turning as Harry's turned to inspect the hall and those inside with wide and curious eyes directed at him. 

'Well....what now?' He asked of no one in particular, his armoured arm coming up and clinking as it hit against his helmeted head, scraping across as a hand would when Harry was uncomfortable and in a tight spot, or thinking; generally when he was thinking. 

"What's that armour doing?" 

"Is it being controlled?" 

"Did it go senile?" 

"Can armours go senile?" 

"Don't know." 

"Has it got a ghost inside?" 

"No, can't be, all the ghosts are out aren't they?" 

Harry took a large sigh and looked up toward the ceiling, well not all of them; he'd apparently been dubbed a new addition by the Castle itself.   
And Mrytle obviously wasn't, she never left her bathroom...or other bathrooms. 

"It's just standing there..." 

"Why is it looking up at the ceiling?" 

The suit of armours head turned down and he began to turn his head each way, eyes scanning the Great Hall and all those that were inside, even the ghosts had stopped what they were doing; some of them in the midst of showing their Headlessness or gaping stomachs or something to all the new students. He shivered as they swept across someone that neither had a head or the middle of his stomach. 

Honestly, half of these first years were going to have nightmares the first few years of their school careers. 

"Do you think it's going to do something?" 

"Dunno know, seems kind of broken..." 

Harry turned his head this way and allowed the gaunlets to hit the floor of the Great Hall, revealing his transparent arms and the chains that connected to them; jingling them menacing as he stepped forward toward the two; the next that fell as their eyes cast down to them and someone whispered "So it's a ghost?" was the lower half of the suit, it clattered in a heap beneath him and he hovered a little higher in the air, his bare feet still connected with chains dangling. 

"Um...a convict?" 

"A murderer?" 

There were several swallows and Harry shook his armoured head; a small bit of amusement in his features as they played this abrupt game. 

"Someone that got chained?" 

Harry threw his head to the side and his chest plate fell with a smash onto the rest of the metal, revealing his true appearance from when he first became a ghost; horrific and unsightly; this way, no one would know who he was. 

Several more people swallowed and goblets clattered back down to the table in a matter of seconds. 

"A victim?" 

Harry inclined his head once and lowered a little in the air. 

"You're new?" 

Harry didn't say anything or do anything and merely waited for the next guess. 

"You're a male..." 

Someone took up the speech, "...you died..." 

Someone else took it up, "Were you killed in chains because you did the same to someone else?" 

"Dude he said he wasn't a murderer." 

"He never said anything." 

"He shook his head, he's not. Are you young?" 

Harry inclined his head. 

People were beginning to stand now and crowd around the armour beneath him; even several of his friends as they tried to figure out who this new ghost was, as they played this impromtu game of questions with him, as they ignored everyone else including the whispering and scowling teachers, even the ghosts stepped forward some even as high as he to try and peek. A familiar transparent face came into his vision and he lifted his hands to cover his eyes, he smiled beneath the helmet and shook it. 

"Were you murdered?" 

His head inclined as the Bloody Baron moved out of their view and Harry's. Harry's eyes widening ever so slightly at the one who had asked, her hands on her hips and bushy slightly gingered head held back to view him; wasn't that ironic?   
He let the rest of the armour, the helmet, hit the clatter beneath him and lowered himself so he was only just above them and everyone could clearly take a look at him; 

His entire body covered in a tattered and bloodied shirt, parts of it singed, the trousers he wore looking the same, the blood that splattered everything and mattered his hair, the singed parts of his body that were revealed beneath them and the cuts that went across his face and across his eyes; as if he'd had his eyes previously gauged, attempted, out. The chains that dangled from him and would remain that way. 

Their mouths were wide and several of them were swallowing thickly and covering their mouths without shame or politeness; he noticed out the corner of his eyes that Draco was in the far background and trying to keep himself calm as he finally viewed what the Dursley's had done to his hopeful saviour, he could see him breath in and out deeply and his eyes that closed tightly; he wasn't sure if he wanted to turn around to his Professor's, but seeing as they'd seen...  
He turned his head to his friends and witnessed their reactions without actually knowing; they had their mouths covered and their eyes wide as if they couldn't quite look away. 

He licked his lips and slowly tilted his head sideways. 

The gasps echoed around and he tried not to cringe as he heard a couple first years off to the side throw up and collapse. It was quite horrific; his eyes turned back to Draco and he tried not to flinch at the look he saw there. It wasn't nearly as horrific, as nearly Headless Nick, but the look in Draco's eyes, that look was clearly because Harry had tried to leave all of this out, hadn't shown him, hadn't known he could at the time, wouldn't have wanted too either. 

The look was mortified and betrayed all in one and he even took a step forward as Draco stood up and ran out of the room, well, briskly walked; Parkinson and Zabini hot on his heels in confusion as their eyes watched until they could no more and had rounded the corner. 

"That's...horrific..." He heard this whisper several times over in different fashions for the next couple of minutes while he just stood there, eyes downcast and tried not to shed the tears he felt he was going too. 

"Sorry." He uttered, any higher and someone was bound to recognise his voice, and swept over them and out of the room; ignoring completely that he could faze through floors, doors and walls; he just needed to get out of there, fast. His body changed back to the cleanness of before as he rushed out, the tears practically flying behind him as he zoomed down to the dungeons, froze just outside of the hidden entrance to the Slytherin Common Room then with a large sigh kept going until he was inside Snape quarters and huddled in the corner. 

~~  
~~

"What's the commotion?" 

"Nothing." Click. 

Harry vaguely heard the portrait click shut and the voice cut off as Snape came back; hung his robe on the hook just inside and stormed his way over to Harry huddled translucently in the corner. 

"Mister Potter." 

He shook his messy head, he didn't want to hear the lecture. 

"You were specifically told to stay inside these quarters, not entice the student body into a guessing game with you. What were you thinking?!" 

Harry sighed and didn't even bother to lift his head from his arms, he knew the man was scowling in an angry fashion. 

"You are not to leave these rooms again, do you understand me?" 

He shifted. 

"Potter do you understand me?!" His hand came into view before hastily retreating and Harry unfolded with a large sigh, looking directly into him with unknowingly but obviously redrimmed emerald eyes with tears still running down his face. 

"Perfectly Professor." He fazed through the wall to his side and into the room Snape had thoughtfully and gracishly given to him. There he laid inches from the bed, arm under his head as a makeshift pillow as he laid on his side; the tears slipping between and onto the clean and pristine bed beneath. 

"Mister Potter." 

Harry closed his eyes and licked his lips and some of the salty tears that slid between them. "Mister Potter." The door eased open and Harry remained where he was, eyes closed and lips caught between his teeth. "If you...if you wish to talk..." Harry frowned into his arm and finally sat up, eyeing the man right near the door looking uncomfortable. 

"Don't push yourself Professor, I'm fine." 

The man frowned. "You are clearly anything but fine Potter, anyone can see that." 

"You wouldn't understand anyway, please leave it alone Professor." He sobbed on the last couple of words and he chewed on his lip as he reclosed his eyes in distress. 

"Perhaps, but I can try. I can only assume the loneliness and unsettling feeling you're currently experiencing is unpleasant, but don't you think you'd feel better and less so if you talked about your situation?" He leaned on the door as he closed it slowly, arms crossed and eyebrows raised in query. "Rather than ignore it?" 

Wiping his eyes roughly and eyeing the man Harry sighed heartedly. "How can I possibly begin to explain this to you? To anyone? Everytime I say something about it, or even if I'm trying to make myself feel better, I just feel worse afterwards. Like I keep slipping further and further away..." 

"Was playing that game and the games you play with the Professors your way to make yourself feel better?" He was frowning. 

Harry shrugged. "It doesn't help in the long run anyway...I just said as much." 

"Perhaps." He inclined his head. "But at the time you feel better, yes?" 

Harry shrugged again and crossed his legs, his body hovering in an up and down motion slowly. "I guess." 

"Mister Malfoy tonight, that was the first time he saw you like that? I was given to believe you told him a month ago?" 

"I did." He sighed. "He cried then, Professor. I had no intention of telling him at all let alone showing him. But he insisted on knowing, so I told him and he ignored me afterwards for whatever purposes and now...In my attempt to make myself feel better, and Hogwarts pushing for me to become one of her ghosts, I inadvertedly showed him that. Me." He shook his head and tugged on his hair. "I feel horrible. His expression...hurt." 

"What about your friends?" He stepped closer and sat on the edge of the bed as Harry formulated his reply. 

"I...I still felt horrible...but they didn't know. They didn't know that was me. They don't know. Draco does, however inadvertently. But he does. If they had known, I wouldn't have done any of that Professor, I really hadn't thought at all of Draco at the time and...I had no intention to show myself at all until the Castle pushed me into the suit of armour." 

The frowned deepened. "The Castle?" 

"Yes." He sighed and shoved his head into his hands, the chains jostling. "She's proclaimed me hers. I'm officially a Hogwarts Ghost Professor. She's already claimed me, she already thinks I'm dead." He sobbed again and scrubbed roughly at his eyes again. 

"The Castle is a She?" 

Harry lifted his head to look at the smirking lips of his Professor and frowned as he spoke slowly and with a question, "Yes?" Snape was looking extremely like he was the cat that got the canary or the cream as it were. Harry was incredibly confused, hadn't the man listened to the rest? What was the big deal with the Castle's ''supposed'' identity? 

"Thank you Mister Potter, I am now 20 galleons richer." He stood up and even went to hold out his hand but with raised eyebrows directed at him from Harry and the transparent hand the edged out with it, the man's thin lips stretched ever so slightly into a sheepish smile. "Thank you." 

"I don't really understand Sir, but you're welcome?" 

"I've had a running bet with Headmaster Dumbledore for quite some time now that the Castle is sentient and that she is a She. So to speak. As for her claims on you Mister Potter, this is your home, you do belong to her. But at the moment, your ghostly self belongs to us and until we've given up all hope she cannot have you. Remember that and you'll be fine." He nodded his head in a finite way and took himself out of the room. Leaving a slightly befuddled, bemused Seventh Year Ghost behind. 

~~  
~~

KNOCK. 

KNOCK. 

"Alright alright girly, I think they've heard you quite clearly." 

Harry chuckled on the otherside within the favorite armchair of his Professor; the man was currently in a firecall with someone Harry had yet to ask about and couldn't come to the portrait quite yet, so...He jumped from his seat and ''walked'' over to the portrait, sticking his head through. 

"My apologies but Professor Snape, Potions Extradinare is currently busy, please leave a message at the tone. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!" His head slipped back inside and he fell over laughing at the expression he'd seen on Hermione's face; her mouth had fallen and her eyes had gone wide at the suddenness. 

"What are you doing?" Severus walked over to find him like this and Harry sat up from the floor then to his feet, pointing the wall as he tried to catch his breath. Frowning he opened the door and groaned, "Miss Granger, please take your mouth from the floor and kindly explain why you are in front of my quarters, something I hope you will not make a habit of, how precisely do you even know where--" 

She cut him off with a flush to her lightly freckled face, hands scrunching around a pile of parchments. "I apologise Professor but Professor Dumbledore sent me down here with some type of paperwork and well..." She looked around her and with a frown stepped back two to three paces as rushing footfalls could be heard approaching them at great speed just down the hallway. 

Harry tilted his head to the side as he hid behind the man, half hidden by the portal and the man's large body. Snape even seemed slightly confused by the pregnant pause and subsequent, rushing feet and step backwards. "Miss Granger?" The running footfalls became louder, echoing down the hall toward them and then within 30 seconds a small child came barrelling down the corridor, sliding to halt and landing into Hermione's side with an 'Oomph' from the brunette witch and a slightly out of breath, "...Her" finger pointing down to her as she extracted the small child from her side and rubbed the bruised flesh above her school shirt. 

The little girl looked no more than maybe seven or nine and was looking up intensily at the both of them with a huge grin on her pale features, something beneath her brown and white hair twitched and Harry hovered a little backwards at the uneasy feeling he suddenly recieved as her grin widened further at seeing catching Harry's translucent head hovering just passed Snape's shoulder. Harry shivered, feeling very uneasy, why would Dumbledore sent a young girl to Snape? What in the world for? 

"Dumbledore? Sent this little girl to me?" Seemed even Snape was frazzled why Albus Dumbledore would do any such thing, he took the paperwork however with a distracted air about him from Hermione's twitching hands, she appeared almost nervous. The young girl beside her almost immediately upon the paperwork exchanging hands zoomed through the portal, passed Snape and bounced on the sofa within Snape's quarters, giggling, her creepy eyes locking with Harry's as Harry turned completely around and watched her do so. "Whatever for?" Harry heard behind him, an elbow edging momentarily into his back. Severus eyes darkened as his eyes scanned the parchments, eyebrows drawn down in confusion they rose in surprise as he neared the end of the words, hands flicking the connected papers back to the first page, he pressed his hand back purposefully this time,trying to shoo Harry without words. 

Harry shivering and getting the picture, swept across the room and floated into his bedroom on the otherside of the bookcases. He could hear their voices just beyond the wall, his ear just barely pressed through the stone. "Very well then, Miss Granger would you like come inside and take a seat?" Harry turned his face and pressed just barely through the books of the bookcase to see the man's hand sweep across the living quarters behind him and Hermione nodd as she stepped through the portal and took a seat beside the young girl giggling to herself as she grabbed a book from just below Harry's head (clearly done with magic as she had not moved) and began to stare at the pages, her tinkling voice still giggling at the words spread across the weathered pages. 

Harry frowned momentarily at the young one, she really did make him feel uneasy. 

"Well Miss Granger?" 

"I'm sorry?" Hermione looked up, pressing a brown curl behind her ear, she seemed very distracted, even more so than Harry had first thought as he'd shoved his head through the portal to play a prank on the person on the other side. 

"You wish to help with the personal Project of Hogwarts? Of Madam Pomfrey's? And you have even come up with some rather interesting theories that may aid in this project? What do you know of this project Miss Granger? What were you told?" Snape's eyes narrowed on Harry's best friend and Harry followed suit in suspicion, Hogwarts Project? Wasn't that him? Their attempt at bringing his dead soul back to life? 

Hermione pushed yet another curl behind her ear as she settled herself down, her breathing calming down as she did so, her brown eyes focusing on the girl beside her giggling at a potions book, not that Harry thought it was normal to giggle at potions texts, but whatever floated the creepy girls boat, he supposed. Then she opened her mouth to respond to her Potions Professor and inquisitor. 

"Yes I do." She nodded determinately. "I have, Madam Pomfrey seems to think they may even be a clue as to triggering Harry's body. I was only told of this project when I accidently saw Harry's body hooked up in a Infirmary bed recently, I was asking Madam Pomfrey about starting a class with her, a personal one, so I can learn healing magic when I saw him. Of course I would ask questions...because obviously Harry ''wasn't here''." She used quotation marks and Harry frowned further. "Harry went missing during the holidays, no letters or anything and he wouldn't willingly ignore his friends for the entire summer, not with the way his life is. He especially wouldn't then go off without a word to some remote location to train, he simply wouldn't. That isn't the way Harry is and even if Dumbledore forbid him to say anything, he would find a way to contact us, we knew how he was treated, at least we thought we knew..." Her words travelled as her brown eyes locked with Harry's through the bookcase, his were glassy. 

"I am not stupid Harry or as oblivious to things as Ronald is, I knew that was you in the Great Hall at the welcoming feast. We're your best friends Harry why wouldn't you trust us? You knew we would do everything we could think of to make sure this never happened. Why didn't you trust us enough to tell us you were being this badly abused?!" Her voice rose as her eyes became angrily wet at his mistrust of them. Harry swallowed and made a sound in his throat. "That sight was horrific Harry, absolutely horrific...to see your best friend in that state is...is this state is..." Her eyes watered more and a tear or two slid down her face unchecked before she could wipe them away, Snape coughed uncomfortable at the sight and gruffly called Harry out. 

"Potter." He rubbed his temples as Harry remained only slightly on their side of the room. "Mister Potter." Harry came out, head lowered and eyes avoiding his friends', he sat as far away as he could be without seemingly being extremely rude from the young brown and white haired girl that was giggling at the potions journal. She gave him the creeps, no matter how much time passed with her in the same room, the feeling wouldn't lessen. He heard the sobs and adjusted himself akwardly on the side of Snape's armchair, ignoring as Snape's arm hovered just inside his thigh without conscious thought, what was it, the fourth or so time she'd seen him? He supposed it was because now, she was really seeing him, so close, and so very transparent. 

"You are absolutely determined to work on this Miss Granger? It will be hard and it very well may not work, are you prepared to take this on knowing full well that you may very well fail to bring back your best friend from the dead?" 

Hermione nodded determined. 

"Are you inclined to let Miss Granger in on this?" He angled his words at Harry and Harry shrugged, nodding without hesitation, the more the merrier he supposed, if she wanted to do it, he wouldn't stop her, it was her provoccative. Snape knew his opinion on this.   
"Very well then, welcome to the project I suppose Miss Granger. Will Mister Weasley be joining you, in this endevour?" 

She shook her brown curls, "No, he doesn't know..." 

Harry snorted, "Of course..." He has the emotion range of a teaspoon, or so Hermione had mentioned in fifth year in the common room of their House, Gryffindor at the end of the year when Harry had that wet, uncomfortable kiss with Cho Chang from Ravenclaw. He wasn't 100% on the reasons for the awkwardness and uncomfortableness, but he knew it wasn't just because she had been crying. Even kissing Ron's sister Ginny the previous year had been uncomfortable and like he was kissing his own sister, and she was, his obdoptive sister from the Weasley's, it had been incredibly awkward to say that to her face too. "Can you not tell him?...I don't...want him to know...if I can help it, please just...leave it at this." 

KNOCK. 

KNOCK. 

KNOCK. 

Harry frowned at the knocking, distractedly moving toward the door as his desperate question was answered with a silent nod from his friend who was using a hankerchief that Harry supposed came from either her pocket or Snape's, the man was leaning back from sitting forward so, perhaps it was his? Harry floated to the door, standing there hovering an inch above the ground, he stuck his head through the stone in order to re-do the prank he had tried on Hermione earlier, but as he stuck his head through he froze, mouth half open and ready to speak like a hollow answering machine. 

"Can I come in?" He asked, face determined and not at all pertubed with Harry's head half hanging out of the stone before him. 

"Uh..." Harry fell backwards into the room abruptly, leaving the blonde hanging and stopped short of floating straight through a now standing Snape that was looking down at him with raised eyebrows. Probably at the abruptness. "It's Draco..." He spoke very quietly, head angled backwards to stare up into Snape's dark eyes, Severus nodded, edged his hand around him and creaked the door open, face being revealed through Harry's body. 

"Come in Draco." His words were soft and more familiar as the blonde stepped through the portal slowly and with a second of a frown gracing his pale features upon seeing Hermione, stepped further in and shut the door himself, cutting off the words of the portrait on the otherside crousing about lots of students visiting so late into the afternoon on a week day, or something along those lines, Harry wasn't really paying attention to it, he was watching the blonde look nervously from Hermione to the girl before seating himself by the two women, directly on the armrest of the chair the girl was sitting in, with the briefist look down at the girl as he uttered confused words into the living quarters, aimed at noone in particular. 

"What's an elvish child doing here, at Hogwarts?" Harry questioned the blonde back, seemingly confused himself. 

"Elvish?" He hovered closer, backs of his legs pressing into the coffee table between the sofa and chairs, just barely refraining from sliding straight through the wood and glass. Draco nodded to the question in his word, and even leaned over to tuck the girls strange how out of her face and behind her ear, which was long, pointed and twitched as his fingers brushed the tip; she didn't seem the slightest protubered that someone had touched her and revealed her elven ears to strangers, in fact, she looked up and smiled around her, her fingers pressing the cover of the book closed within her lap. 

"I'm sorry." 

Harry jumped, having been distracted by her once more and therefore was surprised when the blonde spoke again, a little more loudly and yet somehow quieter at the same time beside her. "What?" Harry blinked before him at the aristocrat. 

"I'm sorry." He repeated, mumbling, a shrug on his shoulders as he did so, but it wasn't an uncaring apology, it was sincere, the shrug something of an awkward action on the blonde at that moment. Harry ignored the shifting of a body behind him in order to concentrate on the blonde before him, leaning back into the corner of the armchair as he teetered on the armrest. "I didn't mean to avoid you for so long after you told me...never a month, I just...well I...saw that." He emphasised his words with his grey eyes widening and his hands held out before him gestculating at Harry's transparent form. "I don't think it was intention on your part, I'm sure it wasn't at the time, and you probably had no intention to ever show that to me whilst you were conscious of doing so, but that's what I saw when you told me what they had done to you...Harry." He swallowed thickly and his face turned slightly more pale. 

Harry blinked, eyes narrowing in confusion. "You saw that before the Great Hall?" 

Draco nodded slowly, a grossed out, uncomfortable look on his face. "Like I said, I think it was unintentional...But I am sorry, and running out of the Great Hall...was just...I was trying to forget I saw it and to see it again so soon, and whilst you were playing some game with the students..." He closed his eyes and shook his head, "I'm sorry, it was just too soon, to gruesome...And I know that's why you had no intention to show me whilst you told me." 

"I'm sorry Draco, you're right, I had no intention to ever do that. I hadn't even intented to do so in the Great Hall, I'm sure I'd have given all the first years nightmares, along with all the other Hogwarts Ghosts..." 

"Potter!" 

Harry jumped and spun, eyes wide at the shout, to stare at Snape standing with his arms crossed. "Yes?" He asked anxiously. 

"Did I know not already tell you, you are not a Hogwarts Ghost?" 

Harry smiled softely and looked down with a nodd, "You did Professor, sorry." 

"Hmm." 

"Harry." 

His messy head spun to her and he froze. 

"You and Malfoy are friends?" 

"Um...since the previous year? Heh..." He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck, the chains rattling and swinging across his torso. "I had intended to keep that hidden though, but only because I didn't think you guys would handle it very well..." She frowned, shaking her head as her expression changed into something berating. 

"Honestly Harry, we're your best friends, you can be friends with whoever you want." He went to open his mouth to interrupt but she held up her hand, "I know Ron would be a little...thickheaded but that's Ron, he'd come around once you showed him Malfoy wasn't working for...Voldemort and had changed at least half of his personality." She turned her head to him and stared directly into his grey eyes. "Have you?" 

"Yes and yes. Would Harry be friends with me otherwise?" He laughed at his own words and Hermione smiled. "Of course I'm still starking and scarcastic, but Potter understands that and I'm not going to just up and be your or Weasel's friends, so--" 

"Of course. Well then, I assume you will also be helping on Harry's Project?" 

Draco's brow creased, "Harry's Project?" Harry also frowned, but from the name. 

"Yes. It is of course to bring Harry back to the land of the living, everyone is currently working on it." 

"To bri--" He stopped himself and looked at them all incredulously. "How on earth do you plan to do that?!" Hermione rolled her eyes and looked at him a little hopelessly, like she had a little with Harry before. 

"That is what the Harry Project is, Malfoy, we are trying to find a way to bring him back...Hopefully." She sighed the last word and looked directly into Harry's once emerald eyes as he hovered above the coffee table before them, as if he were balancing on the small bit of middle furniture, his legs crossed and hands behind him; he'd gotten a little bit more control of the hovering recently, it was as if he were really sitting there and not actually hovering an inch from it. 

Harry shrugged, Snape knew his views, she seemed to understand his views on this aswell, so he shrugged again whilst staring at the blonde, completely up to the other male what he wanted to do regarding Harry's future. Speaking of, where was Snape anyway? Harry spun around on the coffee table and stood, hovering over the furniture and through Snape's armchair, to the archway of the hallway, eyes searching down the dimly lit hallway for the recently less sour man. "Sir?" He questioned into the emptiness. 

"Yes, Mister Potter?" He jumped as the man rounder the corner behind him and tapped him on the shoulder, or at least tried too. Harry shivered, eyes briefly closed at the sensations. "I was just wondering...where...you went?" He tried to sound vague and like he didn't care but the look on the man's face, his dark eyes alight with something, one eyebrow raised, the feel of his cheeks as if they were tinted and the other three occupants eyebrow rising, probably meant he hadn't quite suceeded in making it sound so. Severus held a glass within his fingers as he pointed behind him toward a partition that concealed a kitchette from the sitting room then stepped over to the small girl with a small quirk to his lips. How interesting. He bent to give the glass to her and she grabbed the glass gingerly in her small fingers, careful to not spill any onto the floor, furniture or her pristine white dress. 

Harry frowned at the randomness of getting her a glass of water without prompting from her at all, unless she had and Harry hadn't heard or paid attention, but he'd been looking at her not even a minute ago...he hadn't once seen her lips move for anything. "Who is she exactly, for what specific reason is she here, at Hogwarts, in your quarters?" 

"Miss Nii is here for precisely the same as Miss Granger and Draco is here. To help your case Mister Potter. Come here, stop hovering." He waved with his hand and Harry hovered uneasily to stand before the young girl once more, this time as she handed the glass back to Snape, the contents half empty, she locked eyes with him again, this time however, Harry noticed they were a silver opal in colour and almost seemed to swirl as they encaptured his full attention. She really was quite creepy. Her ears twitched on either side of her head as her tongue came out to lick her lips as Harry's did the same as they dried out from nervousness. 

"But what..." Harry trailed off, Snape's dark eyes hushing him in his perpherial vision. Harry jerked back, body falling through the coffee table and halfway through Snape's chair before he could even begin to right himself, he must have looked incredibly silly, as her eyes began to water and a tear tracked its way down her pale porcelan cheek. "Ah..." Harry uttered, "...I didn't..." He held up his hands and shook his head, eyes moving to every other occupant, he hadn't done that had he? Nobody moved, as if they were completely frozen, their eyes the only things blinking every few seconds as they stared at the both of them, waiting for Harry to...do something? He questioned himself as he stared down at her opal eyes shimmering. 

She spoke and Harry jumped at the suddenness and unexpectedness, he hadn't been aware she could talk. "You can talk?" She proceeded to then stare up at him like he was stupid, even as her eyes leaked tears endlessly. 

"Of course I can" she said, in her small girlish voice, it was almost like Luna's in quality, "I am nine, I've been talking since I was one. Of course most of what I say revolves around speaking to people's souls, and making prophecies." Harry closed his eyes secondly and resignedly to the mention of her making prophecies. 

"Oh?" He said shortly, shifting as he crossed his arms and legs, placing himself back down on the coffee table. 

"Mm." She nodded once, her body bouncing slightly on the sofa below her. "I'm quite excited to see yours, your very unique and I've heard lots about you, especially around the grimoures. This is in fact the first time I have set foot out of the palace since I was born, and my chambers since I could walk. Your soul's very interesting..." Her voice grew quieter and Harry sat alittle forward to hear her speak as it did, though he was frowning at the words she spoke, his insides doing flips from his increasing uneasiness. 

"I don't think your an elf...are you?" 

She just smiled and tilted her young strange head sideways. "What do you think I am Harry?" 

Harry swallowed, "I'm not sure...Or rather I think I'm afraid to ask." his face drew down and his own eyes watered as he spoke, body jerking slightly as he stared at her and ignored the frowning questions aimed at his words. She slipped from the sofa abruptly and Harry once again slipped backwards through the coffee table before he could stop himself from doing so, Harry shivered as he righted himself and had her immediately in front of him, Snape behind him and his friends watching with frowns on their faces. The elf, not elf, stepped forward an inch until she was right before Harry and only had to lift her hand partway to touch his cloth covered stomach. He shivered again at the uncomfortable sensation of the touch, it was cool but not shiver worthy, unless in uneasiness and hovered frozen as he realised that she had actually touched him, hand to stomach. "You..." he quietly murmered, looking down at her, his brow creased down in a perminant worried frown. 

She smiled up at him and pressed her hand to his stomach again, across the tattered fabric of his original clothes, he jerked at the sudden change and closed his eyes at the two gasps that ran across his spine. Her hand was definitely not going straight through...what the fuck was she?! "What are you." Eyes still closed, he grit his teeth and growled the three words down at her. 

"Are you sure you wanna know?" 

No he wasn't, "Yes." 

"My name is Nii Leaf, the blonde one wasn't wrong, I am an Elf, but you aren't wrong either. I am the seer for an Elvish King in the next realm, the realm of Elves, Fae, Nymphs, Sprites and such. I am quite accurate. I'm also a sage, I'm quite powerful even at nine. But the very thing that I am..." She smiled and in the next second, their was a sharp curved edge blade around Harry's neck as he blinked open his eyes, her clothes had been swathed in a black cloak with golden sigils imprinted around the seams and her hair had turned completely white. "I'm also, a Grim Reaper." The drafty breeze from the dungeons ruffled her hair as she spoke and Harry understood why he had been feeling so uneasy. Those really existed?! 

"Why are you here, you couldn't possibly be here to help me then." 

"Uh, but I am." The sythe around his neck vanished and her cloak disappeared with her white hair, and she smiled nicely again. "Apparently you have been deemed somebody important in this world and you are to not die quite yet, I am here to help you, I have been given permission to do so. Lucky you, because I wasn't lying, your soul does intrigue me, Harry." She stepped back from him then and Harry took a shaky breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding. Then he looked around him as she sat back down on the couch, the other occupants blinked, mouths hanging open and Harry swore he saw a bead of sweat run down the side of Snape's face as he sat himself gingerly down his armchair, head falling into his propped up hand. Hermione and Draco weren't really much different that had obviously scarred them too. 

"How do you plan to help Mister Potter, precisely." 

Harry jumped at the man's voice quietly from behind him and turned his eyes toward said man. 

"I am going to slowly awaken Harry's real body; it might take weeks, it might take months, it may even take years. But I will do it, I am aware of the inconvenient situation that Harry's body being incapable has risen. You're soul will have to go back to your body, Harry and it will not be a pleasant trip, I assure you." Harry swallowed nervously as he nodded to her words, anxiously. Everyone else just nodded too, as if they weren't really sure what to say to this either. 

 

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"Oi!" A breadroll banged against the helmet and Harry quickly stopping it from flinging across the room; 'who had that been?' He turned his head and tilted the suit of armours as he tried to find the one responsible. "Do something!" 

What a rude little boy. 

Harry's eyes slowly took in the boy, his smallness and the table he was at and immediately understood the rudeness and the smallness. A slytherin first year. 'Well, lets see what you think about this.' He narrowed his eyes and thinking he'd seen a couple of ghosts do this before, he might be able to do it, threw off the helmet and immediately screamed into the child's face. 

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" 

"...." The boys eyes were wide as Harry screamed down into his face from the suit of armour. Serves the boy right if he pees his pants in fright, what an ungrateful, rude little pest. 

"Heh...Heh...Heh..." The boy was started to hiccup, tears at the corners of his eyes and Harry rolled his eyes before stepping over to the helmet, picking it up, slamming it back down onto his armoured body and stamping his foot with hands on hips. 

"Deservers you right, you little blighter." He strategically made his voice deeper for this. "Next time you want to fling something at a ghost? Don't." He leaned down at grabbed a servient from the table, dabbing the boys eyes. "Understood?" He sighed the word out and rolled his eyes, watching as the boy nodded empathically and dabbed his own eyes, looking embarrassed. 

It wasn't until several seconds later that the Hall fell silent and Harry's head whipped around the only sound still loud enough to close everyone's attention. It was still conveniently at the Slytherin Table and only several seats down; it was Malfoy. Draco. He was laughing. 

"Hah...hah...ahhahahha..." 

Harry laughed a little inside the suit of armour, hand muffling the sound as he watched on. 

"That was...hahaha...oh..." He breathed in deeply. "That was amazing, what's your name?" He looked down at directed the words to the flushed child. 

"Ash." 

"Well...Ash, thanks for the laugh." The boy nodded hesitatingly. "Do try to throw more things at Ghosts won't you? I'd love to see their reactions again, though I fear this one's the only one that'll do that to an 11 year old; tempermental I think." 

'Tempermental?' Harry's eyes had gone wide in incredulousness, his mouth falling open in shock. 

"I beg your pardon?" He tried. 

"Hmm?" Draco's mouth still formed the laugh. 

"Did you just call me tempermental?" 

"I do believe I did yes, are you going to scare me too? Or try rather?" 

Harry sighed. Stupid prat.


End file.
